Last week, the ColdSpark® project was represented at the LCM 2025 Conference in Palermo, where Isabella Bulfaro from IREC (Catalonia Institute for Energy Research) delivered a presentation titled “Biomethane Splitting: Unveiling the Regulatory Barriers to Biohydrogen and Carbon Removal Potential.”
The talk examined how the UK’s Low Carbon Hydrogen Standard and the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) differ in their treatment of biogenic CO₂ and carbon credits. While UK policy acknowledges solid carbon stored or used in products such as concrete as a form of CO₂ sequestration, RED III does not recognise this potential, limiting the assessed decarbonisation capacity of biomethane splitting.
The presentation generated strong engagement from attendees, particularly on the implications of different allocation methods in regulations and the potential economic value of carbon credits.
Full abstract is available below:
Biomethane Splitting: Unveiling the Regulatory Barriers to Biohydrogen and Carbon Removal Potential
Isabella Bulfaro1 , Anna Sánchez1 , Mikel Fadul1 , Gabriela Benveniste1 , Beatriz Amante2 , Víctor Ferreira1
1 Catalonia Institute for Energy Research, Spain; 2 Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
While hard-to-abate CO2 intensive sectors such as steel, cement and heavy transport need sustainable hydrogen for decarbonisation, the development of the hydrogen market remains hindered by significant barriers, including distribution, high production costs, and regulatory uncertainty. Methane and biomethane splitting directly cracks methane into hydrogen and added-value carbon, avoiding direct CO2 emissions. This study conducts a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions assessment of the biomethane splitting process, applying the different methodologies defined in the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) and UK Low Carbon Hydrogen Standard regulations, and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) hydrogen guidelines. Each methodology explores different approaches for biogenic CO2, carbon sequestration credits, and multifunctionality accounting. The UK Low Carbon Hydrogen Standard assigns carbon credits to solid carbon when it is incorporated into concrete and cement or kept in inert underground storage, while biogenic CO2 is accounted for as 0. In this case study, GHG emissions are equal to -7.4 kg CO2eq/kgH2. In contrast, the EU RED III does not include carbon credits, and biogenic CO2 is excluded from the calculation, resulting in emissions of 2.1 kg CO2eq/ kgH2. Moving to LCA, including biogenic CO2, the GHG emission increases to 5.3 kgCO2eq/kgH2 when generic biomethane is applied, to -1.16 kgCO2eq/kgH2 adopting wood biomethane origin. The Red III framework does not distinguish between different uses of carbon, which hinders the recognition of the carbon removal potential associated with biomethane splitting. Conversely, when applying LCA including biogenic CO2, higher overall emissions are observed when biomethane derived from biowaste is used, thereby potentially discouraging circular economy practices. Among the regulatory frameworks, the UK regulation appears as the best option for the biomethane splitting GHG emission accounting, avoiding potential double counting and recognising the technology’s carbon removal potential when carbon is stored or embedded in permanently bound products.
Conference proceedings available here: https://www.lcm2025.org/proceeding.pdf